Where An Eclipse Lasts More Than Three Years

Can you imagine a solar eclipse lasting 3.5 years? No, right? I can’t either. I get the chills just thinking of it. Thank goodness it doesn’t have out here in our solar system.

However, it happens somewhere else in the universe. In this newly discovered system, 10,000 light years from us and named on the catalog as TYC 2505-672-1, stellar eclipses come in 68 year intervals and lasts 3.5 years.

This displaces Epsilon Aurigae from the record holding status for the longest stellar eclipse. Epsilon Aurigae is a giant star that is eclipsed by its companion star every 27 years, for periods ranging from 640 to 730 days.

The new system is also a binary star system made up of two giant red stars. One of these stars has been stripped down to a relatively small core and its surrounded by an large disc of dust and gasses. When this star with a dusty disc comes in front of the other, an extended eclipse happens.

The research by scientists from Vanderbilt and Harvard universities is in a paper for publication at the Astronomical Journal.

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S.G. Basu is an aspiring potentate of a galaxy or two. She plots and plans with wondrous machines, cybernetic robots, time travelers and telekinetic adventurers, some of whom escape into the pages of her books.
Once upon a previous life on planet Earth, S.G. Basu trained to be an engineer, and her interest in science and her love of engineering shows up time and again in her books.